Lin Wanwan is the capital’s number-one human tool.
Why? Because the young general Gu Beichen said she looked like his beloved. He made her copy that woman’s hairstyles, the way she walked, and even her coy smile. She did it for three years. Then he went off to war and came back to marry the real beloved. It turned out she hadn’t died at all; she’d just spent three years having fun at the frontier.
Her family thought she was an embarrassment, her half-sister laughed that she deserved it, and all of the capital knew she was “the stand-in the general discarded.”
Furious, she ate three bowls of rice and decided to enter the palace.
Go complain to the emperor? No. She’d heard he was a sickly man with little time left. Once he died, she’d become empress dowager, and the first thing she’d do was have Gu Beichen’s head chopped off.
But once she entered the palace, something seemed off. How did this emperor, who coughed blood all day and looked ready to topple in a breeze, always catch her sneaking pastries from the imperial kitchens? Why did she always end up in his arms whenever she climbed over the palace wall at night? And how did coughing somehow lead him to demote Gu Beichen to the frontier?
On their wedding night, he finally dropped the act.
He pinned Lin Wanwan against the dragon throne and spoke without a hint of weakness. “My illness is called ‘pretending whenever I see you.’”
The pounding on the door outside shook the hall. Gu Beichen, reeking of alcohol, burst into the wedding chamber and pointed his spear at the throne. “Lin Wanwan! Come with me!”
The emperor smiled as he looked at him, then at her, and lounged lazily on the throne. “Empress, you decide.”
Lin Wanwan lifted off her phoenix crown and walked up to Gu Beichen.
His eyes were red. “Wanwan, I was wrong. I’ve realized you’re the one I love, ”
“General Gu.”
She cut him off, tilting her head slightly to reveal the smile he had taught her to practice for three years, the one that looked just like his beloved’s.
“Do I still look like her now?”
